A/N: Here is the Epiloge everyone! thank you for following us in this journey up until now, we will start uploading the sequel around Christmas, so follow the author in order to stay updated!

The Epilogue

This was the worst plan Albus had ever had, and that included keeping Potter and Draco in isolation after they'd been through a traumatic event.

Severus can barely keep Albus upright, and his eyes still haven't adjusted to the dim light of the cottage after the fiendfyre inferno of the cave. He shudders, remembering the sheer power Albus had wielded despite being poisoned.

This is the man who'd defeated Grindelwald in a duel, Severus reminds himself, watching as Albus shivers and groans. He sets the man down on a couch, where he slumps nervelessly.

The sight is very unsettling.

He's never seen the old man look so weak and frail, he'd never seen him beg before this either. Albus Dumbledore had always seemed like this all-powerful, untouchable, unpassable, all-knowing figure. Being in his confidence had done nothing to assuage that image.

But today, in that cave, whatever the potion had made Albus see… It had rattled him. He knew, theoretically, that Albus was just another wizard. Powerful, yes, with his hands in too many schemes to count. Intelligent and manipulative, yes. But also, just another man with pasts, and regrets.

Theoretically.

Seeing him reduced to a terrified wreck, begging the invisible phantoms of his past life looming over him had been a jarring, eye-opening lesson. Severus banishes the memories behind strong occlumency shields, and gets into professional mode. He needs to help Albus right now, not dwell on his mortality.

He summons his potions kit while waving his wand in a simple diagnostic charm. Albus' breathing is shallow and loud, which Severus tries to ignore.

The diagnosis doesn't reveal much, except abnormal dehydration. Severus purses his lips, confirmation that this is exactly the potion he'd been requested to make, all those years ago. He doesn't know whether to be relieved or worried. He tends to think about it sometimes, how many deaths and maimings and poisoning he is responsible for due to being the Dark Lord's Potion master.

Then he remembers that this is war and the man haughtily coughing in front of him has done way worse and yet leads the fighting force against the dark side. The world is twisted that way. His eyes flitter, and he can feel the stifling pressure in the room.

The locket, Slytherin's locket, currently lies on a table. Forlorn and utterly mundane looking.

All of that for this little piece of jewellery. He turns back to Albus, helping him sit up and drink some water. The effects of the poison are more mental than physical, he knows that much. And while he'd wondered why the Dark Lord would request such a thing when he could just as easily use a cruciatus, now he knows.

"Albus," he murmurs, a diagnosis spell won't help here. "Albus, tell me what you're seeing."

Albus blinks up at him, his eyes vacant for one terrifying second before he shakes his head, "Severus, the Horcrux."

Severus purses his lips, well. The poison must be fading. At least that's what he hopes. He hasn't touched any of his old potions journals in literal decades, so the details are somewhat blurry. He waves his wand in a simple purifying spell. And Albus relaxes minutely. He's still severely dehydrated. Severus urges him to drink more water but the man refuses until Severus has looked at the Horcrux.

Severus takes in a deep breath, praying for patience, and retrieves the locket. It's light in his hands, and there's no magical residue coming off of it, except for the faint traces of the poison it had been immersed in for so long.

He's filled with a strong sense of foreboding as he hands it over to Dumbledore.

Albus goes very still as his hands touch the locket, and then he bolts upright so quickly that Severus takes a step back.

"No," Albus whispers, and Severus' heart sinks. The locket opens with a soft click, and it's… Just that. A locket, with a piece of yellowing paper folded into a tiny square inside.

Albus closes his eyes and falls back against the couch, his skin pale and breathing slower than before.

"So… it had been the locket?" Severus asks although he doesn't need confirmation anymore.

They'd made a gamble, going for a Horcrux despite not having found the one Morris had left. They'd known it had been a fifty percent chance of being the real Horcrux. Morris had one, the Dark Lord the other. Morris took the secret to his young grave, and it was up in chance, whether what he took was the locket or the ring.

They searched. They did. Albus has been doing it for months, every nook and cranny, every mattress and pillowcase, because Morris told him, to his face with venomous words, "I have what he gave me,"

He did. But there was nothing to be found here.

They'd still thought it must have been the ring. Especially after seeing the undisturbed wards in the cave.

Severus wants to laugh. Of course, they had to make things difficult. So damn complicated. One last fuck you to Albus for dragging them into this mess.

When Albus makes no move to open the small note in the locket, Severus picks it up himself, opening it up, and instantly recognising Regulus' writing.

To the Dark Lord

I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in hopes that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more.

R.A.B.

Severus grips the note and stares up at the ceiling, wishing it could give him some more answers. All of that pain and trouble and misery and death, and they still have the exact same amount of Horcruxes to find as before.

He wonders what Regulus and Morris would think of them now. Reggie had been so young, younger than even Severus himself had been when he'd joined. He'd only been eighteen when he died. Morris had lived another eight years before succumbing. Living as a recluse, sickly young man. Living in shame.

Severus sometimes thinks Morris had it easy. Following his loved one into death. Maybe not soon, but soon enough. To not live long enough to see all these failures pile up, to see the Dark Lord rise again.

He'd hope they were happy now except that they left them in this horrible mess.

Albus is still shivering. Severus sighs, letting the paper fall from his hand. "Albus, you need to drink some more water," he says tiredly, conjuring up another glass.

"Read the note," Albus croaks, ignoring the water. Severus shoves it in his hand, irritated, and folds his arms. He watches the glass shake in Albus' hand but makes no move to take it back.

"You know what it says already. It's Regulus. Drink," he says sharply. Albus shakes his head.

"I've wronged them. Merlin knows I've wronged them," he whispers, and his voice is so raspy that it makes Severus wince.

"They won't come back to life by you drying up like a twig. Drink, Albus," Severus repeats. The man stares at him for a long moment and then drinks the water. Severus nods, taking the glass away from him. Albus summons the small piece of paper from the floor wandlessly, his eyes flicking over the loopy handwriting.

"It's a fake," he murmurs.

"It is," Severus nods, "I would assume Morris has hidden it somewhere safe."

"I promised them safety," Albus crumples the note in his hand, holding up the locket by its chain. Staring at it as if it'd had the answers. "The same as I did to you, and they-"

"Albus," he's never seen the other man so rattled, not even when he'd come back with the news that the boys were missing. "That was years ago. They are dead. We need to find-"

Severus barely manages not to startle as the floo flares up behind them. No one ever uses this floo. This is a safe house, only three people other than Albus and him know about it. He's still surprised to hear his voice.

"Albus? Albus are you there?" Slughorn doesn't sound anything like Severus remembers. Not the jovial man he'd been when teaching potions. He sounds tired and concerned. It instantly puts Severus on edge, even more so than before.

What could the man possibly want from them?

"Horace?" Albus' eyes have snapped towards the fireplace, and he's attempting to stand up. Severus stifles the urge to roll his eyes and moves closer, ready in case the man takes a tumble.

"Is this line safe? We need to talk at once," the urgency in Slughorn's voice is rattling.

"Go on, professor," he replies.

Slughorn's eyes rake over both of them, before he nods, "There's something of yours that you need to retrieve from me, old man."

"I do not remember such an agreement," Albus says softly, staring at Slughorn intensely.

"I've found them. Alive. You need to come at once."

Commentary:

Hi there, Elen and Tara here.

Here we are at last. We can't quite believe that we made it so far, not only finishing this installment, but actually working on a sequel.

Honestly, it started out as such a small thing, Elen had the urge to write a Drarry story, and I had tiny ideas.

The first of which had been a tiny scene that Tara came up with, about Draco showering in Shell Cottage, when he suddenly realises that Harry's out on the beach in the water which sends Draco into a frenzy. Then we came up with the suicide curse. It just sort of grew from there.

It's kind of breathtaking to see how those little things grew and morphed into something this extensive and beautiful. We are so overwhelmed that we created this story and shared it with you all.

When we imagined the two of them together, at the very beginning, we imagined them much more mature and older, the first few drafts even contained explicit sex. But then we realized something. The Harry and Draco that were going to end up in a relationship were not mature enough as individuals. So before we could imagine them as a couple, we had to create them and make them grow as people.

Which of course, called for the slowburn.

We actually hadn't expected that the story would be so long. While we had wanted to make it really long, like 200k words, it always felt like a distant thing. Now we're here, well over 200k words and with a sequel planned out. Which we don't have a name for yet, but it's another one of the things we're really looking forward to.

The naming process for My Safest Sound had been a fun, and really meticulous one. We'd spent more than an hour looking up songs, and lyrics. Gathering the best ones. Then narrowing them down to ten, seven, then five. Until we were left with two.

We couldn't decide :)

So we used both.

Now in celebration of this story, we thought we share some random trivia with you guys!

First up, we have the whole concept of 'imaginary Sirius'. Now when we came up with him, as an instrument to showcase Harry's maladaptive daydreaming and his way of coping with abuse, we didn't intend to keep him around.

We created Sirius, in a game, Harry's game, which he started at the very beginning of the story, called "Had everything gone right,"

And of course, in that ideal world, Sirius was a prominent father figure. Always present, signifying parts of Harry, that he didn't really show himself. But we planned for Sirius to leave and for Harry to embrace himself once Draco sort of stepped up his game.

In fact, we very much planned his departure from the story, once Harry got to accept what Draco had to offer.

Now the problem with that, was that we needed to keep him around until Draco could reach that level of maturity that we needed to be in a stable relationship with Harry. It ended up being longer than we thought.

But Sirius, ultimately leaving, really served as symbolism on our part.

While we didn't include it in the actual story, we also know that Sirius wasn't the first Imaginary guardian Harry had. Growing up as he did, he's always had some sort of 'adult' figure taking care of him, if only in his head. Before meeting Sirius, it had been Remus, before that, Hagrid, and before Hagrid, one of his school teachers. Puppy had been his earliest one. It's sort of sad, really.

But when Harry removes Sirius, he's acknowledging the fact that Had Everything Gone Right, he wouldn't have had Draco, who he values above all else. Now he can let his guard down, and has someone to confide in, someone he can trust more than he trusts himself.

We all know how that went down.

It's really just two steps forward, one step back with our boys. But fortunately for all of us, they will pass this hurdle (in the sequel)

Another thing Elen and I really loved about the series was the dead characters.

It sounds funny, but it's really true, because we felt that even though the characters were long gone, they still got to leave a major impact on the plot of the story.

We had Narcissa, to begin with, and I think her impact was the biggest. It started out at the very beginning of the story. She and Argent. We made sure to leave the clues, alluding to her being Argent at least once every few chapters. It was such a surprise when no one guessed her true identity :)

Then there's Morris, who's an original character.

We didn't know what our plan was with Morris, originally, but we left him in because he had potential. And that potential sort of made itself known throughout the story.

Now having read the epilogue, you all must have guessed that Morris and Severus were two sides of the same coin. And whereas Severus was a success story, Morris' had a tragic end.

You'll see more of him in the sequel.

We've also made sure to add in enough references to Lucius and Narcissa that their presence is never really gone from Draco's mind. It was pretty great writing their backgrounds, flashback scenes, little allusions to what kind of people they were and what impact they've had on the present.

And specially how that sort of ties up to the actions and decisions of characters in the present.

Another really fun aspect of this fic had been the original characters. Selene, Valentina, John. We're going to see more of them in the next book too, along with a few more original characters. We've got such in-depth backstories about each of them. We can't wait for our readers to finally meet them. We were pleasantly surprised by the reception Val had received, because she's our favourite too!

I'm not sure if anyone else feels like it, but my own personal favorite character to write, aside from Harry and Draco, was often Snape and Ron.

Now Snape, aside from being this complex character, really amused me because whilst writing him, Elen and I realized, that as stoic and stuck-up as he was, to Draco, Severus was the "fun uncle".

And we loved exploring that dynamic, you know, Severus not only actively involved in Draco's upbringing, but also managing to be the "fun" one out of the three. And then we had Ron, who in many fics was depicted as The idiot. We really wanted to break that cycle, give him the characterization that would be expected from a prodigy chess player and strategist even if not really academically inclined.

When we reread the posted chapters, it's easy to see how we've grown. We used to assign POV'S to each other, earlier. According to who was better at writing who. But now it all seems to have blended in. But I've always had fun writing Severus and Draco. Especially Severus, he's just… his character wasn't the best in canon, but this isn't canon. The topic of his loyalties, and what kind of person he is, and his thoughts. They're just really complicated and great to delve into.

True. Especially when it comes to Harry and Draco themselves. I really loved the care and detail we put into their characterizations. How the damage was real. And once it happened then that was it, and magic wasn't a… Well, a magical cure. They had to live with their choices and the wounds and the consequences.

One of my personal favourite scenes had been Harry and Draco's first kiss. We'd had some trouble with the timeline about when Harry will be cursed, and where they will be during that time. With the second kidnapping and all. But it all worked out in the end, and absolutely no regrets. That scene had been so emotionally charged, angsty and just… lovely to write.

We've both each got a whole separate album on our phones just for screenshots of us talking about MSS. So many scenes had been pre-decided. Like the one with Harry and Draco drunk and dancing on Halloween.

We wrote that one literally the moment we thought of it, lol

...their first kiss, Sirius' departure. Those scenes had always felt so far away when we'd written them, and now looking back it just fills us with this joy. Like holy shit, we wrote this.

Of course, there were a few ups and downs too. We have a few different views about our personal preferences, and they sometimes clashed. And there was this curse (at least we think there's a curse, too many coincidences for it not to be) that whatever we put our characters through, we suffered ourselves. I mean, you'd think that would make us more sympathetic to them and go easy, right? It just fueled us to write more angst.

It really did Lmao. When we were revising this chapter, where the wards had been breached and there was this whole magical earthquake thingie, there was an actual earthquake where I lived. Like literally as we were writing it.

Then there was the time I'd accidentally cut myself while cooking, right after we were done with that scene where Harry cuts himself chopping potatoes.

And the more recent one, was my hands cramping to the point where I couldn't move them, literally for several hours. We believe in the curse.

We've also been having some… memory issues, forgetting stuff a lot. Since we gave those problems to Harry. Honestly, this whole business is terrifying. Writing is dangerous, folks.

And let's not forget our ghost. For like the two-thirds of the series, there was this strange cursor, following our progress and we have no idea where or how they found us. But we wish them the best nonetheless.

But regardless of all those ups and downs, we're here and we did it and we couldn't be more grateful to you lovely people for following our journey.

The sequel is currently in the works, we are SO excited about it. So many new povs. Characters. Reunions. It's going to be a BLAST.

We've decided to post the sequel as a Christmas present to all of you. We'll be posting the prologue to the next installment on 25th December, Saturday. If you want to get a notification when it uploads, be sure to subscribe to the series rather than the individual fic.